Then, suddenly as a lightning-flash, he saw her before him as he had gazed on her at the theatre overnight in her white night-dress, uttering those words of pa.s.sionate love--love which she told him was all addressed to him,--which she was pining to speak to him again.

That, then, it was in his power to have, and to have now,--now at once.

"Ahi, ahi!" he gnashed, through his ground teeth, closing his eyes as the besieging vision postured itself in every seductive guise before the suggestions of his fancy. Ah, G.o.d! what were Cardinals, and Crosses, and place and station, or all the world beside, to one half-hour in those arms?

Come what come might, he would see her first before going to the Cardinal.

s.n.a.t.c.hing his hat, cane, and gloves, breakfastless as he was, he hurried out of the house half mad with the pa.s.sion that was consuming him, yet with enough of the old thoughts about him to turn away, on quitting his own door, from the direction of the Porta Sisi, and to seek the goal of his thoughts by the most unfrequented route he could find.

CHAPTER V

Bianca at Home

Quinto Lalli and Bianca were sitting together in the parlour of their apartments in the Strada di Porta Sisi, that same Monday morning just after the little pink note had been despatched to the Marchese. Bianca was having her breakfast--a small quant.i.ty of black coffee in a drinking-gla.s.s, brought, together with a roll of dry bread, from the cafe. Old Lalli was not partaking of her repast, having previously enjoyed a similar meal, with the addition of a modic.u.m of some horrible alcoholic mixture, called "rhume," poured into the coffee at the cafe in the next street.

"That will bring him fast enough," said the old man, alluding to the note which had been just despatched. "The game is quite in your own hands, as I told you from the beginning it would be. That postscript was a capital thought."

The postscript in question, which, it may be remembered, had not added to the pleasure the billet had given the Marchese, had been added at the suggestion of old Lalli himself.

"I would rather not have written it," replied Bianca, peevishly. "It looked too much like putting the screw on--I don't like it."

"Be reasonable, bambina mia, whatever you are. How, in the name of all the Saints, do you imagine that you are to become Marchesa di Castelmare without putting the screw on--and that pretty sharply too? The man is as thoroughly caught as ever man was caught by a woman; and I tell you, therefore, that the game is in your own hands. But you don't suppose that he is burningly eager to solicit the honour of your alliance, che diamine?"

"Don't, Quinto; don't go on in that way. I tell you I hate it all,"

returned Bianca.

"Cars mia, you are in an irrational humour this morning. Do you like the old game better? It don't pay, bambina mia, as you have found out; and, above all, it won't last. But I am sure you have reason to be satisfied with your success this season in any way. I never heard you sing better in my life than you did last night; and, to say the truth, these people seemed to appreciate it."

"I tell you, I hate it all--all--all!" said Bianca, as she swallowed the last drop of her coffee, and threw herself on the sofa in an att.i.tude of languor and ennui.

"You are unreasonable, Bianca, you are not like yourself this morning; I don't know what is come to you. What in the world do you like, or what do you want?" said the old man, looking at her with a puzzled air.

"Did you see the Marchese Ludovico in a box on the right-hand side on the second tier with that Venetian girl, the artist?"

"The Marchese Ludovico was in the left-hand stage-box with his uncle."

"Of course he was; but I mean between the acts. I saw him from the wing by the side of that girl with her face the colour of mahogany, and her half-alive look. I hate the look of her, and I know she hates me!"

Old Quinto looked at his pupil curiously for a minute before he replied to her.

"What do you mean, Bianca mia?" he said, at last; "and what, in the name of all the Saints, is the Venetian girl to you, or you to her? Did you ever speak to her? Why should she hate you?"

"I tell you, she does. We women can always see those things without needing to be told them; and she knows, you may be very sure, that I hate her."

"But why? What is she to you?" reiterated the old man.

"You asked me, just now, what I wanted. I want, if you must know, what I can never have--what the Venetian girl last night was getting."

"And what was she getting? I don't understand you, upon my soul!" said Quinto, staring at her, and utterly puzzled.

"What was she getting? Love!--that was what she was getting! Ludovico loves her," said Bianca, raising herself on her elbow, and speaking with fierce bitterness.

"Tu, tu, tu, tu, tu, tu!" whistled Quinto, between his pursed-up lips.

"But I thought, bambina mia, that you were going to love the Marchese Lamberto, and be a good wife to him, and all the rest of it, according to the rules and practices of the best-regulated domestic family circles; and I--I was so rejoiced to hear it," said the old reprobate, casting up his eyes and hands.

"Don't, Quinto; don't talk in that manner, or you'll drive me beyond myself. I can't bear it."

"But did you not say that you loved the Marchese Lamberto?" persisted Quinto, dropping his mocking tone, however.

"I said that I liked him better than any of the men I have known; that I admired him as a fine and n.o.ble gentleman; that I would be a good and true wife to him,--and should love him," she added, with a burst of bitterness, "better than he ever will, or can, love me."

"Well, come now, bambina mia. If you think that the Marchese is not enough in love with you, you must have a strong appet.i.te, indeed, and be very hard to content. Why, if there ever was a man thoroughly caught, fascinated--"

"Bah! Love! Ludovico loves the Venetian," said Bianca, with an expressive emphasis on the verb.

"Ludovico, again! I protest I don't understand you, Bianca. But there, when a man has come to my age he don't expect ever to understand a woman. You did not want Ludovico, as you call him, to love you, did you?"

"No: but--"

And Bianca stopped short, and seemed to fall into a sort of reverie.

"But what? If you mean that you wanted to have the uncle for a husband, and the nephew for a lover, that is intelligible enough. The game would have been a dangerous one. But there is no reason why you should not say it plainly between friends."

"I tell you, Quinto, I won't hear you speak to me in that tone," said Bianca, turning on him fiercely, and with flashing eyes. "Did I ever do anything to attract him?" she added,--"did I try to make him love me? Do you think that the Venetian would have stood in the way if I had chosen to do so? I never did! I meant, if the Marchese would make me his wife, to be true and loyal to him; though he himself seems to think it impossible that I should be so. You know that I have never attempted to attract Ludovico in any way."

"Very well then; let his Venetian have him in peace," said Quinto, shrugging his shoulders.

"Why, then, does that girl hate me as she does? What harm have I ever done her?" returned Bianca.

"Why should you think she does hate you?" expostulated Quinto.

"I have told you that I saw it. I saw it in her eyes when Ludovico was handing me the bouquet;--which he only did because his uncle told him to do it. She would have blasted me to death with her look at that moment if she could have done it;--I have a good mind--a very good mind--"

"Be guided by me this once for the last time, as you have so often been before; bambina mia," said Quinto, who thought that he now understood the real state of the case; "make sure of your own game first. Make all safe with the Marchese Lamberto. When you are the Marchesa di Castelmare it will be time to take any revenge on the Venetian you please."

"Ah--h--h--h!" sighed Bianca, shaking her head with an expression of disgust; "you understand nothing about it, Quinto; you can't--of course you can't. Gia," she continued, after a pause of thought; "yes, I could take from her, poor fool, what she has; but could I, Bianca Lalli, take it and keep it for myself? Ah me, it is weary work! You might as well go and flaner, Quinto; for I must dress ready for the Marchese, in case he comes this morning."

"He'll come sure enough," said Quinto; as he prepared to leave the room.

"It's quite time, then, that I made myself ready to receive him,"

returned Bianca, getting up from the sofa.

"Amo il zeffiro, perche a lui suo nome confido," she sang, as she turned listlessly to go to her chamber; and despite what she had said--and said with perfect sincerity to her adopted father--it may be feared that the suo did not refer in the singer's mind to the Marchese Lamberto.

Quinto Lalli was in the act of shutting the sitting-room door behind him, when the outer door of the apartment opened and Ludovico appeared in the doorway. He was the very last man whom Quinto, with the ideas in his head which the above conversation with Bianca had put into it, would have wished to see there. And perhaps there was something in his manner of meeting the visitor that enabled the Marchesino to perceive that he was not just then welcome.